


someone will remember who we are

by LibraryCryptid



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Lovers To Enemies, Mutual Pining, Post-Season/Series 04, THAT THEY DON'T REALIZE IS MUTUAL, TW: offscreen child abuse, catra character study, to maybe lovers again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21780433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryCryptid/pseuds/LibraryCryptid
Summary: She spoke up, saved Glimmer from whatever fate Horde Prime had planned, even though it didn’t make sense, had no logical strategy.But. If Glimmer died, if Catra stood by and watched it happen, Adora would never forgive her.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 170





	someone will remember who we are

The thing that surprises Catra the most is the noise. Or, in this case, the lack of it. She’d never thought she’d miss the constant noise that infected every corner of the Horde’s base, ceasely, without pause. There was always something; the _rattle clunk_ of an ancient heating system, the low groans of the water pipes, the thrum of air filtration machines systems and electricity that was always threatening to give out, the soft pattering of rodents or bugs within the walls. Even the people there were always loud, from fights in neighboring rooms, to the soft breathing of the other occupants of a shared room. But this ship is quiet. Disturbingly so. 

Catra sits with her back to the wall, one arm flung across her knees, the other pressed to the floor. There’s nothing there, no hum, no rattle, no vibration. If you pressed a hand to the wall of the Horde, you would feel the machinery working behind it, old and steady, constantly breaking but comforting in its familiarity and its consistantancy. You expected it to break down from time to time, to take a shower in freezing water or to have the lights go out in a room for an hour or two. But Catra doesn’t know what to expect from this.

The only sound is the squeak of Glimmer’s shoes against the overly polished floor. She’s been pacing for the hour since they’ve ended up in this room, one wall to another, occasionally pausing to try and call up some sort of magic. At the most, she’s managed to produce a small cluster of purple sparks that twinkle prettily yet uselessly at her fingertips, earning a frustrated groan and more pacing. Catra tracks Glimmer’s movements with her eyes, tail twitching in irritation. Glimmer twists on her heel, earning a particularly loud squeak, and Catra winces, the sound echoing in her ears, and she finally snaps. 

“ _Enough_ , Sparkles!” She snaps, fighting the urge to clap her hands over her ears like a small child. “You’re giving me a headache with your pacing!”

Admittedly, Glimmer hadn’t caused her headache, which had been pulsing behind her eyes for the last two days, but her pacing wasn’t helping. Neither was the bright, piercing lights, reflecting off the white walls and floors. In the Horde, the lights were electric, but few and far in between, casting the rooms and hallways into shadows even in the middle of the day. It’s another thing to file away in her growing list of things she misses. 

Glimmer whirls on Catra, and Catra’s pretty sure that if she had expressible ears, they’d be pinned. “Well, I’m _sorry_ ,” the princess snarls. “I’m just not all that happy with the fact that I'm locked in a cell with _you.”_

Catra has to laugh. “You call this a cell?” Sure, they’re not “guests” as Horde Prime had so affably called them, given the way Catra had heard the lock in the door click as soon as they were shown into the room by a skull-faced Horde soldier, but it’s not a bad room by any means. Sure, it’s a little more sterile than Catra is used to; the floors and walls white, the only decoration two identical beds a few feet apart, but that means that they have beds, and there’s a bathroom with running water. “What’re cells in Brightmoon like? Giant, cushy rooms full of pillows, where you wait on them hand and foot?”

Judging by Glimmer’s scowl, Catra’s hit it on the nose, which makes her snort. “You guys are softer than I thought, if that’s how you treat your prisoners. Don’t tell me you expected to find yourself in some room full of flowers and glitter and paintings.”

She’s pushing, needling, the silence and the confinement making her antsy, but she’s not going to admit that to _Glimmer,_ so getting her riled up seems like the next best option. For a queen, it’s surprisingly easy, because Glimmer snaps back immediately. 

“You’re right, I guess I expected to be treated with a little more respect, considering I am the queen.”

“Yeah, right.” Catra stands up and stretches, making sure her every move showcases a lazy confidence. “You’re only queen because your mother bit the dust, not because you actually _earned_ it.”

Glimmer’s face goes a strange, ashen pale, even while heat rises high in her cheeks. Her hands clench, rage rising off her in waves, and Catra tenses, expecting to be punched, all mocking grin. A good scrap would help with this energy trapped in her limbs. But all Glimmer does is turn away, muttering “Why, of all people, did I have to get stuck here with you?”

There’s something so dismissive about the way Glimmer says it, tinted with anger but said like Catra will be of no help to her. Catra doesn’t want to help her, but she can feel herself rising to the bait that Glimmer may not even been aware she was placing. 

“Don’t forget I saved your life,” Catra snaps, “I could’ve let Horde Prime kill you.”

“Why did you help me?” Glimmer glares, a challenge in her eyes. “You didn’t have to. You could’ve watched me die.”

Catra shrugs, reclining back onto one of the beds. “Because I need you to be able to control the weapon, and if I control the weapon, Horde Prime needs me.” She grins, all sharp teeth and cunning, the kind of smile that makes people flinch away from her in the hallways. “See, Sparkles, I know you don’t get it because you people are all about “peace” or some dumb shit like that, but this means I have _power_.”

Glimmer doesn’t seem impressed. Her eyes narrow, but more like she’s studying Catra, as if she can sense the uncomfortable grind of _untruth_ wrapped around her words. 

“Is that the only reason?” 

“Yes,” Catra lies, and it _grates._ She’s not lying, not mostly, because she does want power, has wanted it ever since she was a kid and staring up at Shadow Weaver, knowing that she was at the bottom of some ladder, no more than an irritating little child that the sorcerer barely tolerated. And she’s so close to getting it, can taste it on her tongue, like blood and gunmetal and gasoline. 

But. She hid behind those barriers in the throne room of the ship, watched Horde Prime grab Glimmer by the chin, gripping so tight that she could see the impression his ghostly white fingers left in her cheeks. If Horde Prime killed Glimmer, he killed the queen of Brightmoon, killed one of the most important and powerful fighters of the rebellion. 

And yet, she spoke up, saved Glimmer from whatever fate Horde Prime had planned, even though it didn’t make sense, had no logical strategy. The weapon at the heart of Etheria would rip the planet apart if it got activated again, Catra knows this, knew it since she felt the earth tremble beneath her feet, some strange power dragging an entire planet through the cosmos. And without a planet, she’d have nothing to rule. 

But. If Glimmer died, if Catra stood by and watched it happen, Adora would never forgive her. 

-

They’re twelve years old, or thirteen maybe, and sitting at their spot atop one of the unused towers. They’ve got their feet dangling over the edge and they’re splitting a ration bar. Catra had stolen it, nicked it out of Octavia’s pocket when she wasn’t paying attention. She’s always hungry, the limited rations never quite filling her up. But she wasn’t going to keep it to herself, so she grabbed Adora’s hand and dragged her up here to share it. 

It’s one of the gray ones, which was an unexpected treat. The ration bars come in two different flavors; brown, firm, and weirdly chewy, or gray, springy, and mildly goopy. Gray is vastly preferable to the brown, even if it does leave the strange, unpleasant aftertaste of gelatin coating your tongue. Catra finishes her half and is licking her fingers, uncaring of manners, while Adora takes smaller, more delicate bites, eyes half closed as she savors the feeling of something filling her belly.

Up until a few months ago, Adora and Catra were about the same size, but recently, Adora’s hit a growth spurt, growing long and lanky, the new height giving her an uncoordinated, slightly underfed look. Unlike Catra, Adora won’t eat the occasional mouse that she comes across, and Catra can hear her stomach grumble at night. But food is scarce, and whatever mystery items that go into the ration bars must be hard to come across, because they’re guarded fiercely, and don’t even think about asking for seconds. 

“Octavia’s going to kill you,” Adora warns between bites, kicking her legs just slightly. She’s sporting a bruise across her jawline, where Rogelio had accidentally hit her just a bit too hard during training. Catra pokes it, and Adora yelps and shoves her away even while she laughs. 

“I don’t care about Octavia,” Catra says flippantly, “I’m not scared of her.”

“Uh huh.”  
“I’m not!” It’s a lie, Catra is a little scared of the force captain, with her short temper and proficiency with weapons, but she wants to impress Adora, so she boasts. “If she comes near me, I’ll scratch her other eye out!”

“Right,” Adora says skeptically. She’s down to her last bite of ration bar, but instead of eating it, she passes it over to Catra, their fingertips brushing. “Thanks for sharing.”

“We can’t be queens together if we starve to death,” Catra says, and swallows the bite whole. 

Adora smiles at the reference of the childhood game. They used to spend hours in the nursery, in their barracks playing the game, making up all the rules they’d implant if they become queens of Etheria, everything from no more bedtimes to always being allowed to shower first, so that they never had to be stuck with the cold water. Shadow Weaver had disliked it, so it was a game best done in secret, whispered underneath beds or in corners of hallways, when they were alone. Like they were now. 

Adora yawns and lies back on the metal grating of the walkway, folding her arms over her stomach, staring up at the slowly shifting orange clouds. “When I become queen, I’d rule that we only make gray ration bars, and no more brown ones.”

Catra licks the last little bit of gray goop off her fingers. “Well, I’d overrule you and say that we still make brown ration bars, and give them only to people we don’t like.”

Adora laughs. “We’d only have brown ration bars, the. You don’t like anyone.”

“That’s not true,” Catra says indignantly. “I like _you.”_

“ _Awww.”_

“Shut up!” Catra shoves at Adora, attempting to pin her down, but Adora brings a leg up and hooks it around Catra’s knee, dragging her down onto the walkway beside her. Catra hits the metal hard, but she’s laughing, the happy flush of being here, with Adora, of not feeling hungry and not having to be anywhere but here chasing away any sting. 

“You like me.” Adora digs an elbow into Catra’s ribs, gently. “You’re going soft.”

“Well, duh, you’re my best friend.” Catra rolls onto her back, shoulder brushing against Adora’s. “And my co-queen. I can’t hate my co-queen.”

Adora reaches down, tangles her fingers with Catra’s. “I know. You’re my best friend too.”

“Us against the world,” Catra confirms, and squeezes. 

-

A meal gets delivered to the room by another blank faced soldier. Catra’s stomach rumbles as soon as the scent hits, warm and meaty, some sort of stew served with hard, bread-like crackers. It carries the flavor of the rehydrated ration packs the cadets used to get if they did something particularly well, the reward of a cup of stew or a scoop of mashed potatoes almost priceless no matter how gritty or goopy the texture, no matter how flavorless the end product. Catra keeps one ear turned to Glimmer as she eats, expecting complaints about the food, but they eat in silence. 

It’s almost disappointing. Catra’s itching for a fight, the trapped feeling of the room sinking down into her bones, leaving her jittery and restless. She wants to run, or punch something, or even go through one of those stupid training modules that Shadow Weaver used to make them go through over and over, until they could do them perfectly. She’s not used to inaction, and the four or so hours that she and Glimmer have been stuck together in this room feel like years. The silence stretches, thick and uncomfortable, the crackling tension between the two of them tracing like static electricity down Catra’s limbs. Her tail flicks. 

Glimmer breaks the silence first. “How’d you get pulled up here?”

Catra shrugs, soaking one of the hard little crackers in the remains of the soup. “Got caught up in the web. Don’t think they meant to get me.”

“So you were unlucky.” Glimmer taps her spoon against the edge of the bowl, looking contemplative. “I wonder if anyone else got dragged up, or if it was just us.”

“I’m surprised that Crop Top didn’t get dragged along too.” Catra pops the cracker in her mouth. “He’s apparently got a death wish, always running along after you. Doesn’t seem all the bright, honestly.”

Glimmer shoots Catra a glare. “What do you have against Bow? He’s never been nothing but nice to you!”

“Uh, he kidnapped me?”  
“You kidnapped him first!” 

“Do you want to know the truth, _princess_?” Catra feels a stab of satisfaction at the irritation that crosses Glimmer’s face, and she leans close, daring Glimmer to back down. “I don’t like anyone. That’s kind of my thing.”

“No, it’s not.”

Catra blinks. Glimmer has a strange smile on her face, like she knows something about Catra, like she has some hidden piece of information. 

“Scorpia adores you, for some reason, and you’ve got to like her at least a little bit or else she would’ve left long ago,” Glimmer says, and it takes everything Catra has not to flinch at the name. “And you must’ve liked Double Trouble, because you like chaos, and they’re living chaos.” She has a look on her face like she’s leading up to something, like there’s a bomb ticking in her hands, ready to drop it into Catra’s lap. “And I’ve seen how you and Adora look at each other. You still love her, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

The bomb detonates. Catra is a husk, sitting shell-shocked from the blast, spoon clutched in her hand. Glimmer looks smug, as if she’s just won some battle, reached some great success. Smugness, then shock, as Catra launches herself across the small room, smacking into Glimmer and sending them both to the floor. Glimmer hits with a thud, and she makes a pained noise, but Catra is in her face, claws digging into her shoulders, rage licking down her spine. 

“Fuck. You.”

Glimmer blinks. Catra snarls. 

“ _You’re_ the reason why I...why Adora left. You and Crop Top and the joke you call a rebellion _stole_ her from me, turned her into She Ra and told her that she could be worth something. You’re the reason she left me. We could’ve been something together, but now she’s _gone,_ and it’s _your fault.”_

Catra’s breathing hard, her heart hammering in her ribcage, the _thud thud thud_ echoing in her ears like a distant thunder, like the thunk of machinery behind metal walls. She’s expecting Glimmer to shove her off, to fight back, to throw words in her face like barbed claws, but instead Glimmer looks up at her, and there’s _pity_ in her eyes. “Catra, you know you’re already worth something, right?”

This is worse than anything else Glimmer could’ve said. Catra can handle a fight. She’s been raring for one all day. She can handle cruel words tossed back and forth, but this...this expression of pity, this promise of _worth_ hits her like Glimmer had sent a knee into her gut. There’s wetness on her cheeks and a throbbing behind her eyes and she’s not crying, she’s _not,_ but she doesn’t know how to handle these rising emotions, doesn’t understand what’s happening. 

Instinct kicks in. She lashes out. She flees. She huddles in the corner of the room, and across it, Glimmer raises a hand to her cheek, four scratches just starting to well with blood. 

-

“ _Useless,”_ Shadow Weaver hisses, curling her hand around Catra’s shoulder, fingers digging in like claws. Catra’s seven, and terrified, the voice of her garden dripping with venomous scorn. Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio watch wide-eyed from the corner, all of them too scared of the sorcerer to make a move to defend Catra from her wrath. Only Adora steps forward, cradling her injured arm to her chest. 

“Please, Shadow Weaver, it was an accident!” Adora cries beseechingly, “She didn’t mean too!”

Catra hadn’t. She and Adora had been wrestling under Shadow Weaver’s watchful eye, and it had all been going well until Catra had accidentally bent back Adora’s wrist a little too far. The snap had seemed ear splittingly loud, and both Catra and Adora had stared at Adora’s rapidly swelling wrist for a second, both of them stunned into silence. Then the pain had hit Adora, and she’d started crying, and Catra had panicked, and started crying herself. 

Now, Adora’s face is still streaked with tears, but she’s standing up for Catra, even as her wrist purples and swells. Shadow Weaver is unmoved. She orders Lonnie to take Adora to the medical wing, and drags Catra out without another word. Catra doesn’t bother to cry. She knows it’s not worth the fight. 

(it’s Shadow Weaver’s anger, in crackling purple magic and pain, because Adora’s her favorite, Adora is perfect, and Catra injured perfection, Catra is worthless).

That night, Catra lingers in the small bathroom until lights out is called, and only then does she pad softly into the room newly assigned to her and her four roommates. Adora is already curled in her bunk, wrist newly wrapped in a hard white cast, eyes a little glazed. Catra hesitates at the end of the bed, unsure if Adora even still wants to share after Catra injured her, but Adora shifts, allowing Catra to climb up. 

“I’m sorry,” Catra whispers, and means it, tears threatening once more to well up. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” Adora says simply.

They’re quiet for a while, listening to the hum of the pipes and the soft grate of Kyle’s snores. Catra’s just starting to drift off when Adora whispers, “Catra?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think you’re worthless.”

“Thanks,” Catra whispers. The words burn away a little of the doubt, but still there’s the shifting mist, the one Shadow Weaver injects into her with every cruel word, that she is. That she has no worth in this world. Not until she earns it.

-

Glimmer and Catra don’t talk for the rest of the day. Or, at least, Catra assumes it’s day. There’s no way to tell time in the white room, but eventually, the lights dim, and they take that as a clue that it’s time to go to bed. Glimmer, no longer bleeding, curls up with her back to Catra’s bed. Catra stretches out over the top of the covers, but she can’t relax. She’s not used to having an entire bed to herself.

It was one of the hardest things to adjust to, once Adora was gone. Turning to joke or tease an absent Adora went away quickly enough, but she and Adora had shared a bed since they were two tiny kids sharing a crib in the Horde nursery. As soon as she got promoted to force captain, she got assigned her own room, apart from the shared barracks of everyone else, and the room felt too big, too empty, without the soft noises of other sleeping people, without someone else curled in her bed. 

She couldn’t sleep, the first few nights. There were a couple of times where she thought about going down the hall and crawling in with Scorpia, who she knew wouldn’t turn her away. But it was embarrassing to admit to someone else that she couldn’t sleep alone. And eventually, she did, the exhaustion dragging on her so much that she just crashed. But she still sleeps curled up in a ball to try and avoid kicking the absent other person under the covers. 

Catra knows Shadow Weaver hated it, hated the bed sharing, hated the handholding, hated the way Catra and Adora were so familiar with each other. The two were inseparable, right up until they weren’t, sisters until they were _more_. But Catra tries not to think about that. It causes a sick churning in her stomach, and the barbed wire longing to wrap around her heart. 

-

Catra was fourteen when she looked up and realized that Adora was really, really pretty. It came as a sort of surprise, because it’s not something she’d ever really thought about before, but suddenly, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. And this evolved, slowly over the years, the crush morphing and shifting and changing to something that anyone else would’ve called love. 

But Catra never would’ve brought it up. She didn’t want to lose Adora, couldn’t imagine a life without Adora, and a confession of hidden feelings seemed like a good way to drive her away. Plus, the Horde tended to frown on relationships in general, both platonic and romantic. Their main goal should always be to be a good, loyal soldier to the Horde, and relationships just got in the way.

Friendships were formed of course, but those were more like allyships than anything else, and of course there were always the flings, the brief and hurried fumblings in storage rooms or in empty barracks, but romantic relationships were always cracked down upon. Catra and Adora could never happen, they were both good, loyal soldiers, best friends but nothing more.

Until the week before everything went wrong. 

They’re sparring, both of them edgy from a promised upcoming test. It seems like a good way to work off any excess energy, the padded floor preventing any injury while allowing them to practice. And while Adora’s better at hand to hand combat than Catra, Catra manages to hook a foot around Adora’s ankle, sending her tumbling to the floor. Adora hits the mats with a gasp, and then bursts out laughing. She props herself up on her elbows, grinning up at Catra. 

“You have to have cheated, somehow,” Adora says, teasingly. “We all know you can never beat me.”

Catra rolls her eyes, holding out a hand to pull Adora up. “Are you kidding? I could kick your ass any day.”

She hauls Adora up, and suddenly, they’re face to face. That traitorous heat curls in Catra’s chest, her breath catching, and she furiously tries to shove it down. Her eyes lock with Adora’s. 

Adora’s cheeks are pink, and she’s breathing hard, probably from the exertion, but she’s still holding Catra’s hand, fingers rough with calluses, lips slightly parted. They’re eye to eye, nose to nose, and…

“Catra?”

“Yeah?” Catra’s voice cracks, and she internally curses, swallows hard, tries her hardest to look normal, but-

“Can I kiss you?”

_Oh._

And suddenly, her arms are around Adora’s waist, and one of Adora’s hands is at the back of her neck, the other tangling in Catra’s hair, and they’re _kissing,_ and there’s a sunburst expanding in Catra’s chest, something soft and silky curling through her gut, and she curls her fingers in the back of Adora’s jacket, nips gently at Adora’s lower lip, revealing in Adora’s sharp intake of breath, at the flexing of her fingers. 

Catra’s mind is struggling to keep up, this always felt impossible, and yet right now, it feels inevitable, like they were always leading here. It makes her want to purr, curl in this soft happy warmth, but instead she just pulls Adora in closer. She braces, ready to be shoved away, ready to have to apologize for seeking out this closeness, but Adora gives a happy little sigh, her thumb coming up to stroke Catra’s cheek. 

When they break apart, they’re both flushed and breathing hard, still clutching each other like their lives depend on it. 

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” Adora confesses, whispers, and Catra laughs, mirth bubbling up, because she’s had a crush since she was _fourteen_ , but apparently the two of them can’t see the other’s secret pining. Adora giggles too, a little confused, and Catra pulls her back into a kiss. 

But it can’t last. They break apart again when they hear footsteps coming down the hall, both of them freezing like deer in the headlights until the footsteps and conversation pass. 

Adora says it first. 

“We can’t.”

“Shadow Weaver would kill me,” Catra confirms. Adora would get away with a scolding, they both know that, but Catra would be torn apart, Shadow Weaver picking her apart with claws and magic and rage. “Not only that, she’d be excited to do it.”

“That’s not true,” Adora protests, but Catra levels her a Look, and Adora sighs. “Okay, fine. She doesn’t like you. But that’s only because you’re always arguing with her.”

“Yeah, because she doesn’t like me.”

“I feel like we’re getting off topic.” Adora reaches down to hold Catra’s hands, both of them in her own. “I just...we can’t. It’s just a crush, right? And we’re best friends, we can’t risk that.”

“Right.”

“And we’re not supposed to be in romantic relationships.”

“Right,” Catra confirms again. “It’s playing with fire.”

“So, we should just be friends.”

“Yeah,” Catra agrees, even though it breaks her heart a little. “But, I mean, not for like another ten minutes, right? We don’t have anywhere to be.”

Adora laughs, until Catra grabs her by the front of her stupid jacket and pulls her in for another kiss.

-

“Catra?” 

Glimmer’s voice is quiet in the dark, and Catra responds with an irritated noise into her pillow. Glimmer apparently takes that as an invitation to keep talking, because she does. 

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.” They both know that Catra’s as much a prisoner as Glimmer, that in Horde Prime’s mind, there are Etherians, to be conquered and ruled, and the non-Etherians, the rightful rulers of the planet. There are no gray areas. For the first time in their lives, Glimmer and Catra are on the same side, shoved together by a seemingly uncaring universe. 

Glimmer is silent for so long that Catra thinks she’s fallen asleep, but she whispers, once more into the darkness. “I just want to go home.”

“That’s one thing we can agree on.”

And it may not be an official truce, but for the moment, it feels like one.

-

We’re in the desert, as two friends embrace, having lost so much; friends, mentors, a destiny. Adora and Bow cling to each other, both of them deeply afraid of the future and what it may bring. They’ve got a long walk ahead of them, and both of them are so _tired_ , so for now, they hold each other up, gathering whatever bits of strength they still have left. 

On the other side of the desert, three shapes move in the darkness. They wear the red and white of Horde uniforms, but carry no weapons. Kyle and Rogelio are holding hands, and they enter first, the trees swallowing them up. Lonnie pauses at the edge, looking back towards the hulking, smoking shape of the Horde base. Determination crosses her face, and she reaches up, digs her nails under the edge of the patch sewn onto her uniform, and rips it free. The Horde patch drifts to the ground, and Lonnie turns and disappears into the trees. 

A few miles away, three princesses enter a castle, unsteady on pain-weak legs. Frosta is barely conscious, half leaning, half being carried by Scorpia. Perfuma walks beside them, one hand on Scorpia’s shoulder, as if to reassure Scorpia she’s there. Scorpia is one of them now, her mad rush to get to Frosta cementing her bond. Princess Scorpia has been welcomed home. 

One floor up, a king picks up a framed photo. In it, his love and his daughter are half-embracing, both laughing, both looking happy. He smiles even as he cries, and runs his hand across his daughter’s face, a face he barely recognizes. Time has stolen the daughter he remembers away from him, and now he waits, ready to meet her again, hoping she comes home safe. 

We pan up. 

In a chamber full of mysterious, vaguely medical looking equipment, the person previously known as Hordak is disconnected from a machine and sits up. He has no memory. He has no past. He is an adoring little brother, he is a loyal soldier. 

In a sterile white room, two girls sleep, exhaustion dragging them down into an uneasy slumber. One, a queen, tosses and turns on an uncomfortable bed. The other, a soldier, curls up tight at the foot of the second, reaching out in her sleep as if for another person. They both dream of home. 

And, finally, we find an old women. She stands in the woods, a basket in her arms, and stares at the sky, glittering with stars. She smiles, and tucks the basket against her chest, and continues on her way. Etheria is no longer alone in the universe. It is time for her to fight back. 

And for the first time in their lives, her citizens see stars.

**Author's Note:**

> If y'all want to chat, you can find me on twitter @ainewrites


End file.
